Rigorous solution for drained analysis of spherical cavity expansion in soils of finite radial extent

Abstract

This paper revisits the expansion problem of a spherical cavity in an elastic–plastic soil mass with a finite radial extent under drained conditions, which proves to be non-self-similar. Rigorous semi-analytical solutions for the analysis of this problem are developed adopting several well-known soil models. With the small strain assumption, analytical expressions for both elastic stresses and displacements are obtained considering the stress dependency of soil moduli and influences of the outer boundary. In the plastic zone, the non-self-similar expansion process is formulated into a set of first-order partial differential equations (PDEs) based on the innovative combination use of the Lagrangian and Eulerian descriptions, and an efficient algorithm for solving these equations is developed. The solution method is quite general to be extended to many other constitutive models and is validated by comparing with existing solutions in some special cases. Then the cavity expansion behaviours in both clay and sand are discussed with a particular focus on the boundary effect. It is shown that, when the ratio of the outer to inner radius is small, the boundary effect may significantly influence the cavity expansion response. The present solution may provide a useful theoretical method for the validation of relevant finite element calculations and interpretation of some typical geotechnical problems such as cone penetration tests in small-size chambers, considering the boundary effect.